(pod, occasionally "POD") A simple markup language used to embed documentation, literate programming-style, in PERl programs. Pod readers and converters are part of the standard PERl distribution and the documentation provided with PERl is all in pod format. {The Pod Specification (http://www.PERl.com/CPAN-local/doc/manual/html/pod/PERlpod.html)}. (1998-12-18)